Student
working to pay college tuition falls to death

A 22-year-old university student working as a laborer in a school building construction project in İstanbul’s Ataşehir district fell to his death yesterday from the third storey of the structure.Ömer Çetin, a student at Muğla University’s Turkish literature department, worked on the building of the Rotary School in Ataşehir for TL 30 a day in order to pay for his tuition. Çetin, who did not have a permanent residence in İstanbul, had also been sleeping at the construction site at night.

At 10 a.m. on Tuesday morning, he fell 15 meters from the third storey of the structure after he lost his balance trying to uninstall wooden slabs with an adze. His co-workers immediately called an ambulance, but Çetin had already died when the paramedics arrived. Crime scene investigation officers from the Ataşehir Police Department inspected the scene. Çetin’s body was then taken to the Council of Forensic Medicine (ATK) morgue.

The young man’s friends were shocked by the tragedy and found it hard to speak to reporters. Ali Tokat, Çetin’s friend who said they had talked about the Trabzonspor–Fenerbahçe match right before the accident, said: “He was a very good person. He was going to university. He was here to pay his own way. He was going to go back to school soon [after the summer break].”

His acquaintance informed the police that Çetin was originally from the Tutak district of Ağrı province and had come to İstanbul for work about a month ago. The police have launched an investigation into Çetin’s death.